Monthly Archives: June 2014

My friend Sally came to stay last week and it was lovely, because she is one of the nicest people in the known universe. She’s an ace artist, and she used to work in a pottery painting cafe and retains a deep affection for those fine establishments. So one day we went to Greenwich to paint pots (and also to pootle around the Maritime Museum), in the company of many adorable small children (for it was half term). She painted me a beautiful mug, while I decided it was time for the first Avoiding the Bears foray into homewares.

I couldn’t think what to paint. The conversation went like this.

Me: I don’t know who to paint! Oh, which early modern personage should I mock in ceramic?

Sally: You could do a picture of the King of Bling?

Me: YES PARTY BOWWWLLLLLL

I was not particularly skilful at using the squeezy bottle for outlining stuff, so Charlie’s face has come out more Ralph Toft than intended. But I flipping LOVE the work of Ralph Toft, so this is all to the good in my opinion.

Here is the inside. IMPORTANT NOTE: Charles II was well dead by 1699. WELL dead. I meant to write 1669, but messed up when I came to paint it because I was singing Prince to myself while I did it. But anyway, let’s pretend like he was thinking ahead (like Prince was!) and imagining the amazing parties that would happen at the turn of the century (like Prince was!) and let’s all take a moment to be sad that Charlie never got to go to said amazing end-of-century parties (unlike Prince, who I imagine partied HARD) where he would have drunk all the Fellows of the Royal Society under the table.

And here (in rather dull colours because I took the pictures inside without a flash) is the outside: